Painting Without a Paintbrush

Known for “painting without a paint brush” and creating masterpieces from unconventional items, Malaysian artist Red Hong Yi has amounted an impressive portfolio of larger than life portraits consisting of some of Asia’s most prominent figures. From the humble teh tarik man, to megastars like Jackie Chan and Jay Chou, and even Singapore’s national symbol, the Merlion, Red has used unorthodox items, such as tea bags, coffee stains, and sunflower seeds, to create symbolic portraits that are astounding in both scale and detail.

The portrait that started it all was her sunflower seed tribute to Chinese contemporary artist Ai Wei Wei. Red completed this “painting” in an old Shanghainese shikumen alleyway with seven kilograms of sunflower seeds – five years later, she revived this portrait using 20,000 sunflower seeds to create her second Ai Wei Wei portrait, entitled Open Your Eyes.

During Red’s time in Shanghai, she also completed another portrait in one of the city’s iconic shikumen alleys. To depict the face of Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, Red used pins to piece together an array of monochromatic socks, which were then hung on bamboo poles much like how locals hang their laundry.

Armed with a basketball and a pail of paint, Red bounced her way into creating a patterned portrait of Chinese basketball superstar Yao Ming.

姚明，材料: 篮球和红色颜料

带着篮球和一桶颜料，Red 用篮球“拍”出中国篮球巨星姚明的画像。

Dato’ Lee Chong Wei – Shuttlecock Feathers

This high contrast profile of Malaysian Dato’ Lee Chong Wei, a World No. 1 professional badminton player, was put together with 1,800 shuttlecock feathers to celebrate his face off with Chinese player Lin Dan at the World Championships in Guangzhou.

Red’s portrait of Taiwanese pop megastar Jay Chou is one of her more symbolic works. “This project was inspired by the opening and closing lines in Jay Chou’s song ‘Secret.’ The opening line is about lifting a coffee cup from a saucer and the last line of the song is about autumn leaves and fragmented pieces.” She used hundreds of imperfect individual coffee stains to form Jay Chou’s portrait, likening them to the falling autumn leaves mentioned in “Secret.” The portrait took 12 hours to complete – Red said that coffee is one of her more temperamental mediums to date, as it was challenging to achieve the perfect consistency and required it to be applied in layers.

“I didn’t sleep the whole night thinking of how to capture Aung San Suu Kyi’s great aura, dedication, strength, determination, compassion, intelligence, courage, poise, and gracefulness in a portrait. I wanted a portrait that not only captured her political eminence but also her beauty and love for her father, and his for her.” Red experimented with flowers and food dye for an entire month before creating her portrait of the Burmese Nobel Prize winner.

The crown jewel of Facebook’s Singapore-based office is giant wall mural consisting of 15,000 disposable chopsticks, which were layered and torched to reveal the country’s national icon overlooking some of Singapore’s most recognizable sights.

Touted as a quintessential Malaysian everyday hero, the teh tarik man is a namesake of Red’s Southeast Asian upbringing. Teh Tarik means “pulled tea” in Malay and is a traditional beverage that is comprised of sweet and frothy milk tea. Over ten shades of brown and 20,000 tea bags were used – in the end, this homage to her homeland weighed a whopping 200 kilograms.

To commemorate Hollywood legend Jackie Chan’s 60th birthday, Red collected 64,000 disposable chopsticks from around Zhejiang and in Beijing to create his portrait. The chopsticks were grouped together with string and placed in sequence along a metal frame, alongside 60 bamboo chopsticks holders that were intricately filled with skewers to form the Chinese word long, which is Jackie’s first name in Mandarin Chinese.

Many of Red’s portraits have received international acclaim and widespread media attention, allowing her to put a spotlight on Asia-based figures through her art. Her works are influenced by both her Malaysian upbringing and her current surroundings. Her time in Shanghai even helped to shape her unique style by opening up her world to a plethora of readily available raw materials. Most recently, Red has created series of #flowerbombing collage style portraits, which celebrate an admirable group of women in arts and entertainment, including the likes of Kiko Mizuhara, Liu Wen, Michelle Obama, Emma Watson and Alicia Keys.